In a system's GUI (graphical user interface), the name of a screen is important information that summarizes the contents of operations to be performed by a user through the screen and information displayed on the screen. It is therefore preferred that the name of a screen be easily understood by the user and formed by a unique verbal expression. The uniqueness of screen names can be evaluated, for instance, by checking whether the same screen name is used for different screens in a system targeted for usability evaluation. When the uniqueness of screen names is to be manually evaluated, an evaluator checks and records the name of each screen in the target system to verify whether or not different screens use the same screen name. Further, in a system where the structures of screens are complex and an on-screen area other than a window title area shows information indicative of an operation to be performed from a screen and a title of displayed information, the evaluator performs an evaluation after locating an on-screen position at which target information (information equivalent to a screen name) is displayed. When such an evaluation is performed manually, increased workload is imposed on the evaluator. Further, the screen name display area located by one evaluator may differ from that is located by another evaluator. Moreover, some evaluators may fail, for instance, to detect all problems. Consequently, the result of evaluation is likely to vary from one evaluator to another.
For example, a first related art is a technology related to a GUI automatic evaluation device that is described in Patent Document 1. The GUI automatic evaluation device inputs screen design guide data, stores the input guide data as formal rules, compares the stored rules against GUI information that includes window-specific attribute information and attribute values representing GUI object data of an evaluation target system, and outputs the window-specific result of comparison to indicate compliance with the rules. Patent Document 1 also describes means for generating GUI information, for instance, from product specifications, sources, and GUI building tools.
A second related art is a technology related to a testing device that is described in Patent Document 2. The testing device is capable of conducting a test in which a predetermined operating procedure is automatically performed. The testing device uses an operation database to store a user sequence which is to be designated by a user at the time of testing, and a complementary sequence which ensures that the user sequence is executed in a specified manner, and verifies the status of a GUI portion when the user sequence is executed in the specified manner. The testing device executes the user sequence whenever it can be executed. However, when the user sequence cannot be executed, the testing device retrieves an appropriate complementary sequence, executes the retrieved complementary sequence, and then executes the user sequence.
A third related art is a technology related to a web screen creation tool and terminology check tool described in Patent Document 3. These tools check a web screen source file by using terminology pre-registered for verifying homonyms, suffixed kana endings, and synonyms which are prone to error when they are written. When any pre-registered term is detected within a web screen to be evaluated, these tools display a list of possible corrections for the detected term.